January 22, 2001

Questions about cremation and
resurrection less prominent today
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___As cremation becomes more popular in the United States, few people are asking serious theological questions about the practice. But such indifference has not always been the case.
___"I don't think there's any doubt but that Christian tradition started off in favor of burial and against cremation on the grounds that resurrection would be easier for God to pull off," said Steven Davis, professor of philosophy and religious studies at Claremont McKenna College in Southern California.
___Davis, a graduate of Princeton University's Divinity School, is one of few American theologians to have addressed this issue in any scholarly manner. He is author of a book titled "Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection."
___Although cremation had been practiced by the Greeks and Romans prior to the time of Christ, early Christians generally viewed cremation as a pagan practice, according to Davis and other historians.
___One of the major arguments against cremation by Christians has been anticipation of a bodily resurrection at the Second Coming of Jesus. The Apostle Paul, for example, talks about a "resurrection body" in 1 Corinthians 15.
___"The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable," Paul wrote. "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."
___Most Baptists and most evangelical scholars agree that the Bible teaches a bodily resurrection from the dead. "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised," Paul wrote.
___From the first century until now, no one this side of heaven has had knowledge of how that bodily resurrection will take place. But early Christians seemed to think the physical body ought to be preserved as much as possible through burial, Davis noted.
___"That argument gets a little dicey when you imagine that some bodies of Christians who are going to be resurrected will have been in the ground 2,000 years or more," he noted. "It doesn't seem like it's any more difficult for God to resurrect someone whose body has been in the ground 2,000 years than someone who was cremated," especially if you believe God is all-powerful.
___The old assumption was "that resurrection can only happen if God can look about and find the atoms or molecules of which my body consisted and put them back together," Davis said.
___Scripture doesn't necessarily teach that, but Scripture is fairly vague on the details of burial and resurrection, he noted.
___Many Christians today have a strong belief in bodily resurrection without believing the physical body must be preserved to make that happen.
___"A lot of contemporary people think God can resurrect Steve Davis even if God doesn't find a single atom of what once was me," Davis said. "God can take whatever is available and configure those atoms in a Steve Davis way, and it will be me.
___"The bottom line is, I don't think it makes any theological difference at all whether a person is buried or cremated," said Davis, who added that he is not an advocate for cremation. When his wife of 38 years died last year, he had her buried in a traditional way.
___His choice of a traditional burial "had nothing to do belief in the resurrection," he said, even though he believes in resurrection.
___The choice of cremation over burial is simply a personal preference, according to Guy Thompson, president of Thompson's Harveson & Cole Funeral Home in Fort Worth.
___Although he's not an advocate of cremation either, about 20 percent of his business is in cremations. A devout Catholic, Thompson has worked closely with Baptist ministers in Tarrant County for 63 years.
___"Christian people would not participate in cremation for a long time because it was thought to be unkind to the body," he explained. The practice was associated more often worldwide with non-Christian or pagan peoples, he added.
___Those concerns are seldom expressed today, said Bob Beck, a longtime Tarrant County Baptist pastor who has worked with Thompson on many funerals.
___"I honestly have not run into a rabid opinion about theological concerns on anyone's part in recent years," Beck said. "If there is anything, it's just a quiet question: I don't know whether I would want to do that or not. I haven't heard anybody clearly enunciate a theological objection."
___Likewise, Leroy Summers, minister to older adults at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, confirms he hears no theological objections to cremation.
___Arguments that cremation might somehow diminish God's ability to resurrect a body are inconsistent, Summers and Beck agreed.
___"Most of us cannot really imagine the greatness of God," Summers said. "What about people who have been burned in a plane crash, or during the war or have been sunk in ships? Somehow God's going to care for those. The Scripture says 'ashes to ashes ... .'"
___"It is utterly inconsistent that people would think that any decayed body--however that might have decayed, naturally in the bottom of the ground or in the ocean or in a fire--could not be resurrected by our omnipotent God," Beck added.
___Carolyn Leverett was apprehensive about having her husband cremated after his death. But the Cedar Hill Baptist laywoman, who owns a funeral home in Dallas, heeded the wishes of her late husband anyway.
___"He explained it to me in terms of general science, that matter can be neither made or destroyed but you can change its form."
___A dead body will deteriorate regardless of what is done to it, Leverett continued. To her husband, "dust to dust and ashes to ashes in a short time made more sense."
___Cremation may be faster and appear more expedient, but family members should carefully consider their choices, advised Thompson. He believes there's psychological value in knowing exactly where a loved one is buried and being able to visit that place.
___In cases where his clients choose cremation, he works to provide the most meaningful memorial service possible. He encourages families choosing cremation to have a traditional memorial service before the cremation if possible.
___"I still feel like people are better off if they can say goodbye to the body," he said. "This provides confirmation that they indeed are dead."
___If the body has been cremated before the service, he always places an empty chair and a small table in the place where the casket normally would be, symbolizing the person who is no longer present.
___Thompson also encourages family members to have something at the service that symbolizes who the deceased was and what they will be remembered for. One family brought a wheelbarrow filled with garden tools. Another brought a bugle. Others bring photographs.
___"Symbols can be very meaningful," he said.

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